Nearly 8,000-year-old cranium found in Minnesota River

A partial skull from practically 8,000 years ago that was found by two kayakers in a river last summer time will probably be returned to Native American officials in Minnesota

ByThe Related Press

21 May 2022, 19:10

• 3 min learn

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. -- A partial cranium that was discovered final summer time by two kayakers in Minnesota can be returned to Native American officers after investigations decided it was about 8,000 years previous.

The kayakers discovered the skull within the drought-depleted Minnesota River about 110 miles (180 kilometers) west of Minneapolis, Renville County Sheriff Scott Hable mentioned.

Thinking it might be associated to a missing individual case or homicide, Hable turned the skull over to a medical expert and ultimately to the FBI, where a forensic anthropologist used carbon dating to find out it was possible the skull of a younger man who lived between 5500 and 6000 B.C., Hable stated.

"It was a whole shock to us that that bone was that old,” Hable told Minnesota Public Radio.

The anthropologist determined the person had a depression in his cranium that was “maybe suggestive of the cause of dying.”

After the sheriff posted concerning the discovery on Wednesday, his workplace was criticized by several Native Individuals, who said publishing photographs of ancestral remains was offensive to their culture.

Hable stated his office eliminated the post.

"We didn’t mean for it to be offensive in anyway,” Hable stated.

Hable stated the remains will likely be turned over to Upper Sioux Community tribal officers.

Minnesota Indian Affairs Council Cultural Sources Specialist Dylan Goetsch mentioned in a press release that neither the council nor the state archaeologist were notified in regards to the discovery, which is required by state laws that govern the care and repatriation of Native American stays.

Goetsch said the Facebook publish “confirmed a whole lack of cultural sensitivity” by failing to call the person a Native American and referring to the stays as “a little bit piece of historical past.”

Kathleen Blue, a professor of anthropology at Minnesota State University, stated Wednesday that the cranium was undoubtedly from an ancestor of one of the tribes still living within the area, The New York Instances reported.

She said the young man would have likely eaten a weight-reduction plan of plants, deer, fish, turtles and freshwater mussels in a small region, fairly than following mammals and bison on their migrations.

“There’s probably not that many individuals at that time wandering round Minnesota 8,000 years in the past, as a result of, like I said, the glaciers have solely retreated just a few hundreds years earlier than that,” Blue said. “That period, we don’t know a lot about it.”